So, you want to do good by your fellow humans and wear a mask. Excellent! However, you always want to have a little more personal touch to your mask. I can help you out with that, my friend.
Add a little flair with a handmade cross-stitch patch. Seriously, it’s that easy.
Here’s what you’ll need:
– a mask (I bought mine pre-made at Target, but you can make your own too!)
– aida cloth (I don’t use waste canvas/water soluble canvas as that will poke holes in the mask)
– thread
– your design
– iron-on adhesive and iron
– straight pins (optional)
First things first, pick your design. I haven’t wanted to deal with trying to iron anything on the lumpy middle, so I’ve made sure all of my designs would fit on one side of the mask — you have about a 3.5″ square area (but measure your mask to be sure your design fits!) Then stitch it up like you normally would.
When you are finished, you’re going to want to cut a rough shape around your design. Use that shape as a guide to cut out the iron-on adhesive. Then, attach the two using the manufacturer’s instructions.
After they are fused together, you’ll probably want to do a bit more trimming. Now I made my borders wide. You might want yours smaller — do what you like, but just don’t cut into your design.
Next, and this is the most important part, test out where you want to put the patch. Remember, your nice, flat mask is going to go on your nice, three dimensional face. You’d be surprised how you think it’ll look one way and how it doesn’t quite look right when you try it on. Now, I used a straight pin to test my patch. But if you don’t have any or don’t want to use a pin, you can tape it and then reposition it until you find a place you like. (Just remember to take the tape off before ironing!)
Finally, iron the patch on. (Again, using the manufacturer’s instructions.) And there you have it, a custom mask.
Then, you can take dramatic selfies using Instagram’s eyelash filter. Or not.
Concerning washing, if you are worried about damaging your work, you could always hand wash your masks, or you could place them in a garment bag before throwing them in the washing machine. The big thing is just to make sure the bond with the adhesive is good and solid before washing them for the first time.
Now, I’m off to fight the urge to make a few more masks. There’s a Triforce, a Tangled sun, the Warlock symbol….
Also, a big shoutout to Moxpowers on Twitter for helping me with the title of this blog post. Thank you!
As always, if you have any questions, you can comment here or drop me a line on Twitter or Instagram. Happy crafting!
Stitch X to Continue 